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Copy 1 

THE RIGHTEOUS 
OWNERSHIP 

OF 

WEALTH 



A Lecture on Democratic Theology 

By 
WILLIAM LEE MARTIN 

Newspaper Reporter in 
Pittsburgh 



I 



COPYRIGHT 1917 BY W. L. MARTIN 
PRICE 50 CENTS 



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©CU472813 
AUG 271917 



The Righteous Ownership 
of Wealth 

The Theologians of a century ago and less were 
accustomed to prove the existence of God by the 
argument of "design." The creation of the universe 
proceeds, they said, according to an intelligent plan. 
The fact of such a plan is sufficient proof of an Intel- 
ligence which produced it, hence there is a Creator 
who "made the Heavens and the Earth." To some 
extent this method of proof is still employed. 

This method of proving the existence of God does 
not impress materialistic scientists. There is no need 
of a creator, they think, to account for creation. It 
proceeds in accordance with self-existent laws, and 
the chief business of Science is to discover these laws. 
When they are found they answer for themselves, 
and bear their own internal evidence that they were 
never made by any "Infinite God." 

In arithmetic, for instance, there is no need of God 
to establish that the sum of two and two is four. So 
it is with the whole of mathematics. Its laws exist. 
They never were made and they never can be unmade. 
So also, they maintain, it is with the laws of Mechan- 
ics, of Chemistry, of Electricity and even of Biology. 
Materialistic Science reduces the Universe to mechan- 
ism, self-existent and self-operating. There is no ne- 
cessity of Infinite Intelligence to start it or keep it 
going. 

This reasoning has been extended to include the 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

social organizations which men form for their mutual 
interest and enjoyment. Some say that there are laws 
of society which -determine the social conduct of men, 
just as the laws of the ten digits determine the result 
of a problem in addition. It is harder to discover 
them and prove their existence, say these DETER- 
MINISTS, than it is to discover and prove the laws 
of Mathematics, but in the long run they work out. 
Man as an individual thinks and acts as he must think 
and act, and the sum of the thoughts and acts of 
any number of men, -however large, is that which it 
MUST be. Social conduct is hence nothing more 
than the result of mechanistic law. 

The principal branch of social science was called 
by the ancients "Economics/' by its professors of the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries "Political Econ- 
omy" and later again "Economics." Latterly Econ- 
omics has come to be regarded in some quarters as 
consisting of "Socialism," Socialism being a school 
of Political Economy which aims to supplant the 
other schools. The subject with which this Science 
deals is Wealth. 

The economists have always held the existence of 
certain self-existent laws of Wealth, but it remained 
for the Socialists, under the leadership of Karl Marx, 
to convince themselves that there are mechanical 
forces in operation which must give a final shape to 
the whole subject. Marx proved, or thought he 
proved, by an exhaustive historical investigation, 
that wealth has always been the subject of struggle 
between classes. This struggle is nearing an end. 
It will be finally won by the working class, after 
which classes will disappear from society. The wealth 

4 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 



will thereafter be collectively owned and distributed 
and the Science of Political Economy will be com- 
plete. It will for the future be the chief and most de- 
lightful occupation of Man to watch it work. The 
Science of Political Economy, to the extent that it 
is dominated by the thought of Karl Marx, excludes 
God. The other Sciences exclude God. At all events 
they do not take into account the Infinite Free Will 
in their calculations. God has been ejected from 
Science. 

The Marx Socialists will have it that the argu- 
ment is to be considered closed for those whose bent 
of mind disposes them to accept .the conclusions of 
Science. It is precisely for this class of persons that 
I propose to reopen it. There is at least one Science 
which NEEDS God. This is the Science of Political 

Economy. 

A necessary idea in connection with the thought 
of God is the idea of Freedom. Of his own choice He 
created the Universe, if He created it at all. In His 
own Infinite unlimited ways He conducts it, if He 
conducts it at all. If God exists, the laws of the 
universe do not dominate Him, whatever may be 
their application to man. He is above them and 
uses them according to His pleasure. They do not 
DETERMINE His ways. 

The science of Political Economy presents a field 
where close investigation proves that Freedom is at 
work. In this field the conclusions of the mechanistic 
calculators are forever being set at naught. Its re- 
sults are the working out of the Will of Man and in 
the working out of the Will of Man is to be seen the 
working of the Will of God. Let those whom the 

5 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

subject interests follow me and if I bring them to my 
conclusion, then they must admit the Existence of 
God as an hypothesis necessary to the intelligent de- 
velopment of the Science of Political Economy. Let 
us consider the nature of Wealth in connection with 
its rightful ownership and management. 

Whatever may have been the process by which 
Man came to be on Earth, he is on the earth and he 
makes use of it. He assumes that he has the right 
to do this. As prehistoric man, or animal, he eats the 
earth's fruits and he clothes himself with the skins of 
the other animals, which he finds upon it and kills. In 
the course of time he learns to give to the operations 
by which he obtains food and clothing the name of 
Labor. 

Later he learns to give to the products of his La- 
bor and also to his possessions which were obtained 
by methods other than labor the name of Wealth. 
Then comes Political Economy and instructs him that 
only that is Wealth which is produced by labor, and 
finally Socialism which tells him that all Wealth ex- 
cept that which is produced by labor is "unearned 
wealth" and cannot possibly belong to him. The 
possession of Wealth is thus made a question of 
righteousness, and, as mechanism cannot possibly be 
righteous or unrighteous, Socialism becomes self- 
contradictory, being "for campaign purposes," as it 
were, obliged to recognize man as a "free agent" in 
order to hold him responsible 

The attempt to define Wealth as the product of 
labor defeats itself, and the Political Economy of 
which it was the conspicuous feature, that of Adam 
Smith, has very largely lost its hold upon the minds 

6 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

of men. Wealth, as the product of labor only, is an 
idea which contains a fundamental error. During 
thousands of years that men had not conceived the 
idea they were not troubled with the error and nat- 
urally, having discovered the error, they are getting 
rid of the idea. The world is filled with Wealth and 
will be, not only if man should cease to labor, but if 
he should cease to exist. The bee which labors is 
wealthy and so also is the butterfly which does not 
and the earth is their wealth, even as it is the wealth 
of man. The uncaught fish and the unmined ore are 
wealth and, since the coming of the "trusts," men 
possess themselves of both and account themselves 
wealthy by reason of such possession. And again and 
again the professors and the experts begin the task 
of making over the "Science of Political Economy. " 

The truth about the "Science" of Political Econ- 
omy is that it is deduced, or is deducible, from the 
laws and customs which man, during the thousands of 
years he has spent in evolving from a savage into a 
civilized state of existence has MADE to regulate the 
ownership of property. It is, as it were, a scholastic 
distillation from statute law, and statute law is not a 
"science." It is instead a resultant of the interaction 
of man's Freedom and the conditions under which 
Man lives and is not determined by mechanical pro- 
cesses. 

A shrewd banker is said to have once observed 
that there was no necessity for Ten Commandents ; 
one was enough. The one was "Thou Shalt Not 
Steal." His remark contained the essential truth that 
pretty much all law has a more or less intimate connec- 
tion with ownership. Property and women are the two 

7 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

things about which most laws are made and women 
are a form of property, or at all events were until 
very recently. Property and women make necessary 
the laws against murder and violence. Out of prop- 
erty, in all likelihood, developed government, 

Property in the first instance consists of land. 
Later it comes to include other things, the products 
of labor for instance. In our day it has come to con- 
sist largely of machinery, and about the machinery 
centers, to a great extent, the most important of the 
political and economic discussions which it seems are 
likely to result in the making of a great deal of new 
statute law and new "political economy." 

History shows that land is in nearly all cases ac- 
quired by force or fraud, and the thesis of the great 
French communist, Prondhon, "Property is Theft," 
may for theoretical purposes be held as tolerably well 
established. Lawyers will usually admit that property 
takes its "origin" in theft, but that after it has been 
"possessed" for a sufficient length of time its posses- 
sion becomes honest. 

Be that" as it may, however, it is tolerably clear 
that all statute law is somehow related to the posses- 
sion of property. "Civil" laws for the regulation of 
such possession are promulgated and when these are 
violated the acts of violation are denominated "crimes" 
and laws for the suppression and punishment of crime 
are adopted and enforced. The disputes over property 
lead to acts of violence and men are imprisoned for 
assault or executed for murder. Exclusive property 
rights in women and children are established also and 
their violation is likewise made criminal by statute 
law. But it is all, or nearly all, related to property 

8 



The Righteous Ownership oe Wealth 



and property is a more or less permanent form of 
Wealth, the thing which is the subject matter of the 
Science of Political Economy and which Socialist 
Political Economy says is produced only by Labor. 

The study of Political Economy then is the study 
of Law. The study of Law is also the study of 
Crime. It will be found when the matter is fully 
worked out that the study of Crime is much more 
closely related to their Science than the political 
economists, even the Socialists among them, have 
heretofore been disposed to admit. Crime, the crime 
of robbery, establishes many times the first title to 
property, and crime remains in many cases associated 
with the title so long as it exists. 

If it is true that law has to do in the main with 
property, then it is in a sense true that the Ten Com- 
mandents can be reduced to one, that somehow theft 
involves all the other transgressions. Theological 
experts need not be shocked by this view if they will 
read the Commandments with the idea in mind that 
God possibly promulgated them with a view of pro- 
tecting HIS property, and it may prove an- aid to 
others in dealing with the interminable puzzle to 
which the effort to "settle" the "rightful" ownership 
of property gives rise, if they will get a firm mental 
grasp of the notion that perhaps after the adroitness 
of lawyers and ingenuity of statesmen have exhausted 
themselves and have failed, humanity may realize 
that all THE PROPERTY BELONGS TO GOD; 
that "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness there- 
of," is no mere expression of poetic or religious fervor, 
but the literal truth. 

During a professional life of more than 30 years I 

9 



The; Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

have had many personal experiences which led me to 
make a study of crime.. 1 have had, as I believe, ex- 
ceptional opportunity, for the observation of crimes 
having to do with politics. Political crime aims finally 
at the acquisition of property and my experience with 
it has brought me in the main to the view of Proud- 
hon that "Property is Robbery." It has brought me 
to the further view that the acts which we forbid by 
law and punish as crimes grow by imperceptible de- 
grees out of acts which custom sanctions and law 
permits. 

My study of history has brought me to the same 
conclusion but it will prove most illuminating for my 
special purpose, and most profitable to those to whom 
I particularly address myself if I speak chiefly from 
my experience. To this end I shall discuss mainly 
such offenses as have been brought prominently be- 
fore the public mind in connection with recent political 
developments of our country and especially of its 
states and cities. 

I shall speak of Crime in general terms and it is 
to be borne in mind that I claim to have had very 
special opportunity for observation along this one 
line. It is to be borne in mind also that I state that 
my study of history and sociology convinces me that 
at some stage in human development probably every 
act which men now hold to be criminal was subject 
to dispute as to its criminal character. That is to 
say, that the line between respectability and grossly 
criminal conduct was at some time in history not 
more closely drawn than is now the line between re- 
spectability and some of the acts connected with 
politics, with so-called "big business," with finance 

10 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 



and merchandising even ; and which acts some portion 
of our population is disposed to brand as dishonest 
while some other portion maintains that they are en- 
tirely legitimate. 

In the discussion of this subject from this point 
of view, it will be necessary for me to assume certain 
premises as being admitted. First, as to man, I must 
be allowed to hold the general theory of his evolution 
from the higher forms of animal life as having been 
fully demonstrated. I think this will perhaps be 
easily conceded by, at all events, a very large pro- 
portion of well informed persons, since the general 
doctrine of evolution, applied of course only to man's 
physical organism, is now held and proclaimed by 
many men occupying pulpits in Christian Churches 
or who hold other positions of prominence in connec- 
tion with religious work. 

The belief in the law of struggle for existence and 
survival may be said to be fully established among 
scientific men. For those who do not hold the scien- 
tific point of view, however, my theory as to crime 
can possess very little interest and will, without 
doubt, be rejected without consideration when I have 
stated that it rests necessarily upon the evolutionary 
hypothesis. 

In the second place, I must make a certain not 
commonly accepted assumption as to morals. Accord- 
ing to this assumption vice and virtue are to be con- 
sidered as polar or related opposites. That is to say, 
we are to hold it impossible to draw an absolute line 
as to any human act at which virtue leaves off and 
vice begins. 

The demonstration of this theory, while not so 
11 



The Righteous Ownership oe Wealth 

generally and commonly known as the proofs of the 
theory of evolution, is quite as complete. My purpose 
does not permit me to go into the details of either of 
these theories. There is an abundance of literature 
from which anyone interested and doubtful may ac- 
quire all desired knowledge concerning them, but as 
an assent to their truth is requisite to a sympathtic 
consideration of the theories which I have to propose, 
it is necessary to make this reference to them. 

The purpose which I have in mind will be best 
served by a discussion of a particular virtue and its 
opposite vice. I have chosen for this purpose, as I 
have previously stated, and as being that concerning 
which I have heard most discussion and had occasion 
to make most investigation, the virtue of honesty and 
its opposite vice of dishonesty. This vice and this 
virtue I maintain cannot be sharply distinguished. 
There is no point at which it can be asserted with 
certainty that honesty leaves off and dishonesty begins. 
These qualities are not sharply distinguished in any 
single man. We know them only by their extreme 
manifestations. A thief who has been arrested and 
convicted is generally held to be thoroughly dis- 
honest, whereas a man who has lived a useful life and 
has never been charged with dishonesty under any 
of the laws against theft in its various forms, is said 
to be honest and considers himself to be honest. 

Ordinarily' men are ready to become indignant if 
it is suggested that they are other than honest in the 
superlative degree. Nevertheless, a man who has had 
long experience with honesty and dishonesty in their 
relation to politics, which is the point where they be- 
come hardest to distinguish, and who considers the 

12 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 



matter philosophically and without prejudice or favor, 
is, in my judgment, certain to reach the conclusion 
that honesty and dishonsty are in some manner mere- 
ly the opposite phases of the same thing; that they are 
in reality like East and West, and that not until it is 
possible to say where the East leaves off and the 
West begins, shall we know with exactness just what 
constitutes honesty and what does not. 

The criminal statutes abound with attempts to pro- 
hibit dishonesty. We have larceny and burglary and 
highway robbery and forgery, embezzlement, bribery, 
corrupt solicitation, embracery and various other kinds 
of dishonsty defined according to law, with prohibi- 
tion of their commission, and penalties attached But 
nowhere in the law, so far as I have been informed, is 
there any attempt to define dishonesty in general. ' It 
would be useless to make the attempt. 

In the definition of actions which it forbids, the 
law does not even approximately define words in the 
sense in which they are commonly used. Crime, for 
example, is not defined by law, and no attempt is 
made to fix a general penalty for crime. The law 
merely defines crimes, and not as crimes even, but as 
felonies and misdemeanors : 

In a biological sense crime is held to be an unso- 
cial instinct and a criminal act is one which should 
characterize the individual committing it as an un- 
social being. Obviously to make this a legal test 
would work the very greatest injustice, as there are 
persons manifesting unsocial characteristics yet who 
do not work any very great harm to others. Egoism, 
misanthropy and hypochondria are unsocial traits of 
character. Even exclusiveness would have to be de- 



13 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

fined by law and a penalty attached if the law de- 
signed to punish every biological crime. As I have 
pointed out, there are many kinds of dishonesty. All 
of them may be designated in a general way as theft, 
and thus in common language the terms dishonest 
man and thief are in a manner interchangeable. The 
application of the term "thief" in politics is very com- 
mon when no one supposes it to be meant that the 
individual to whom it is applied actually took the 
property of any other individual from his person or 
premises. Even the various kinds of theft have to be 
separated and reseparated in order that definitions 
may be made which will work in practice. 

Let us take the crime of bribery as an example. 
It is a form of theft, without doubt. The dishonesty 
of giving a bribe or accepting a bribe is not open to 
question. And yet, what do we mean by bribery? 
The masses of the people believe they have been rob- 
bed when this crime is committed, and for this reason 
it is possible to work them into states of great in- 
dignation against the briber and the bribe taker. 
Evidently bribery is a kind of theft. 

With such crimes as burglary, larceny, highway 
robbery and forgery, the law's definitions may per- 
haps be considered as tolerably well established by 
long use, but still the laws with reference to them are 
frequently amended so as to extend or narrow the 
scope of the crimes forbidden and for which the pun- 
ishment is prescribed. With reference to the crime 
of bribery, this is the case in a much greater degree 
and shows the difficulty of exact definition. 

I have not investigated the matter except to fol- 
low from day to day the reports of political agitation 

14 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

leading to new laws, but I have no doubt the applica- 
tion of the term "bribery" has been very much ex- 
tended, not only throughout this country but through- 
out the world, in very recent years. For instance, in 
the State of Pennsylvania, a law commonly called 
"The Corrupt Practices Act" was somewhat recently 
passed. It forbids certain actions in reference to elec- 
tions which formerly were legel, although widely de- 
nounced as dishonest. These actions are not all speci- 
fically designated by law as "bribery," but as com- 
monly interpreted they are so considered and the 
men who commit them are referred to in ordinary 
speech as bribers and bribe takers. 

These changes in the law relating to bribery re- 
sult from the growth of opinion. An action which 
the great majority of men may consider proper 
enough is objected to by. someone who finds it in- 
jurious to his interest or offensive to his views of 
morals. If he is a person of talent and energy, he ex- 
presses his view and prevails upon others to accept it. 
In due course of time his view comes to be the prevail- 
ing view and the law is modified in accordance with it. 

Let us take an example near at hand. I am de- 
livering a discourse for your instruction or entertain- 
ment. Suppose I make some statement which some 
person present considers it to his interest shall not 
be made in public again. Suppose that for a financial 
consideration paid by him I agree not again to make 
the statement. This act would not be, in a legal 
sense, bribery on his part, although, if the transaction 
resulted from a design on my part, I might be held 
guilty of extortion. But suppose that, resulting from 
the frequency of such transactions, a public sentiment 

15 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

arises which demands that it be made criminal for 
persons so to influence public speakers and that the 
crime be designated and punished as "bribery," the 
necessary legislation would in due time result. It 
might be necessary to change constitutions, but this 
can be done. 

Let us consider another example ; and I am going 
to describe now something which is in actual opera- 
tion and public opinion concerning which is in pro- 
cess of formation. The profits of the banking busi- 
ness are not drawn entirely from the interest which 
banks receive upon loans. We have laws which for- 
bid the loaning of money at rates higher than a cer- 
tain specified percentage. These laws are evaded by 
the payment of bonuses both to the banks and to 
individuals. In many cases bonuses are very large 
in proportion to the amounts of loans, the common 
practice being to make the face of the loan for one 
amount and the actual loan for another amount con- 
siderably smaller. It is said even that bonuses 
amounting to fifty per cent of the actual loan are 
sometimes charged. It is said and believed, also, that 
at times these bonuses are paid not to the banks make- 
ing the loans, but to officers of the banks or other 
persons possessing and willing to exercise the neces- 
sary power to effect the transaction. There is a rising 
public sentiment in opposition to this practice. With- 
out much doubt, it will, in course of time, be forbid- 
den absolutely or laws will be enacted which will 
greatly restrict transactions of this kind. It might 
easily happen that the definition of bribery might be 
extended to include this kind of offence. 

Bribery, according to the most common law defini- 
te 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

tion, is the acceptance of money or other valuable con- 
sideration by an officer of the law either for the per- 
formance or non-performance of his duty. A bank 
official, while not actually in the employ of the govern- 
ment, is nevertheless, in a sense, a public officer and 
no great stretch of imagination is necessary to con- 
ceive that acts which bank officials now legally commit 
may ere long be classed as criminal and designated as 
bribery. 

At all events, the thing which I am here describ- 
ing and illustrating goes on constantly. Offenses 
multiply as population increases and society becomes 
more complex. Laws which must define the offenses 
they prohibit must multiply in consequence. Courts 
are added to courts and policemen and detectives in- 
crease in great numbers, as the declarations of new 
crimes furnishes new criminals to keep them em- 
ployed. Both officers and offenders represent so much 
energy withdrawn from the productive power of so- 
ciety in order that what remains may be protected. 

I do not mention this in disparagement. I assume 
that it is all necessary. I am not condemning the tend- 
ency, even ; but describing it to show how it constant- 
ly defeats the attempt to make and apply exact rules 
for dealing with crimes. The attempt rests for its 
success upon the making of exact definitions which 
shall at all times be useful, and this attempt is impos- 
sible of success and must forever and ever be repeated 
as society grows in numbers and complexity. 

Let me give another illustration of the difficulty of 
making exact definitions of words which are in very 
common use and of which practically everybody as- 

17 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

sumes without thinking very much about it that they 
know the meaning. 

I once asked a man, who was expressing to me his 
indignation against someone whom he designated a 
criminal, what a criminal was. He readily answered, 
"A criminal is one who commits crime." "And what 
is crime?" I asked him, "there must be some quality 
about the act which causes it to be declared in viola- 
tion of law." "Yes," he said, "it must be a vicious 
act." "What is vice?" I asked him. He was some- 
what puzzled for an instant, 'but answered, "Well, 
vice I should say, is anything of which we ought to 
be ashamed." "Well," I said, "I know a man who has 
a wart and he is ashamed of it. Is the wart vice and 
ought the man be considered a criminal?" "Now, 
look here," he answered, "you are simply 'kidding' 
me and it isn't any use to argue with me ; anyhow, it is 
certain that any fool can ask more questions than the 
wisest of men can answer." I saw that he was be- 
coming angry and let it go at that. And it was a good 
place to stop. He told the truth. It is certain that 
fools can ask questions which wise men cannot answer 
— in accordance with* any definitions which can be 
made of the intangible and elusive tendencies which 
we call moral qualities. 

I will, however, attempt a definition of honesty on 
my own account, not in expectation that it will with- 
stand question, but in order to aid those who wish to 
do so to continue the speculation upon the subject 
along their own lines. I have said that I do not con- 
sider honesty a quality, but merely a direction. As- 
suming, however, that it is a quality, I should say 
that honesty is an impulse which inspires men to limit 

18 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

themselves to the possession and enjoyment of what is 
rightfully their own. If this is even approximately 
correct, it must follow that some possess this impulse 
or disposition in a greater degree than others and 
hence again it becomes a direction, a matter of more 
and less, of higher and lower degree. I have often 
been asked if I think this or that man is honest. When 
asked this question by someone with whom I am toler- 
ably well acquainted and who, I therefore feel, will 
not take offense, I sometimes say that every man is 
honest and assert that I can go to the penitentiary and 
find an honest man in every cell. 

The meaning of the well-known story of Diogenes 
and the lantern appears to me to be this : That Dio- 
genes meant to convey the assertion of his belief that 
no man is so thoroughly honest that it would be im- 
possible for him to commit one dishonest act. It has 
commonly been assumed to mean that Diogenes 
meant there was no such thing as an honest man, and, 
with the modification which I have described, I am 
prepared to say that I endorse this view myself. He 
might, with equal truth, have said he was looking foi 
a dishonest man and so have asserted that a dishonst 
man does not exist, meaning thereby a man who is in- 
capable of any impulse toward honesty or any honest 
action. 

The matter resolves itself into this : That no man 
possesses so much honesty that he might not have 
more, or so little that he might not have less. So I 
say that not until men can tell with certainty where 
the East leaves off and West begins will they be able 
to draw a line between honesty and dishonsty, between 
honest men and dishonest men and say with strict. 

19 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

truth that those on one side of it are honest and those 
on the other side dishonest. 

Nevertheless, for practical purposes it is highly 
necessary to assume that individual men are honest 
or dishonest. This need arises out of the relations of 
men in society and is constantly growing. It grows 
because the relations of men constantly grow more 
and more complex. These are constantly evolving into 
higher and more diversified forms. This necessity is, 
at the present time, to be observed to great advantage 
in the realms of politics and business where there is 
an ever increasing need of new rules to prescribe 
what shall be considered honest, moral or lawful, as 
we may. choose to express it, and what shall be con- 
sidered dishonest, immoral or unlawful conduct. 

Men ask, if Darwin's law is true why do we not 
see it at work? The answer is that we do see it at 
work. We do not see animals evolving from apes into 
men, but we do see society changing from a state in 
which the richest man is most highly respected to one 
in which the possession of wealth is regarded with 
distrust. The explanation is that there is a conflict 
of ideals and that the fittest is destined to survive. 
When the fittest has triumphed in a conflict between 
ideals, the unfit becomes immoral. When the fit has 
firmly established its dominion over the minds of men 
the unfit is declared by statute law to be criminal. It 
is not that the unfit, the immoral, the criminal in 
human acts and practices, was never good, it is that it 
has been succeeded by a fitter and stronger, and there- 
fore a better, and has BECOME the bad. This pro- 
cess we may see going on around us in the demand 
for the making of new statutes and in the demand for 

20 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

the enforcement of old statutes, according to interpre- 
tations which were not previously given to them. 

This demand and this process affects principally 
the law relating to politics and business, but it might 
just as well affect the laws relating to other subjects. 
If we consider the great religious movements of the 
middle ages, we are afforded an opportunity to study 
this process in a merely historic aspect and without 
being influenced by the prejudices and opinions by 
which our own conduct is guided from day to day. 

A few years ago it was a common practice to ap- 
peal to business men for help to "down the Ring" or 
"down the Boss" in politics. The corruption of poli- 
tics was described and exhibited to business men as 
something of which they were incapable and as reason 
for their giving their aid in the making of warfare 
against it. Now business itself, is the subject of very 
many of the same sort of attacks as a few years ago 
were made upon politics and in which business men 
were urged to join because of their assumed virtue. 
It is true that those who make these attacks limit 
them to what they call "big business" but there can 
be little doubt that the practices denounced as charac- 
teristic of big business are prevalent in little business 
also to whatever extent the little business man may 
feel himself safe in carrying them on. 

It is now common among business men to say one 
to another that it is criminal to be in business, and 
a halting and uncertain feeling which prevails in 
the business world is without doubt in some degree 
comparable to the feelings of fear in the mind of the 
commonest violater of law who may be meditating 

21 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

some action and doubtful of his ability to commit it 
and escape unpunished. 

It makes no difference whether it is enacted by 
legislatures in obedience to popular demand or pro- 
mulgated by despots according to their own whims, 
law cannot give a valid title to property. The power 
which made the law can unmake it, or it can be un- 
made by a succeeding legislative power. We see this 
going on constantly with reference to a particular 
kind of property, namely the offices, which are the 
prizes for which the politicians contend and the "privi- 
leges," out of which "big business" creates its en- 
ormous profits. The European war shows it again 
going on over property in land, some of the govern- 
ments proposing to establish their rights over large 
areas of land, and later, though this is not admitted, to 
give title to individuals. 

The Science of Political Economy is valuable 
chiefly as an agency for influencing statute law in the 
making. The controversy over the policies of Protec- 
tion and Free Trade is a case in point. The Orthodox 
Political Economy "settles it" that Free Trade is the 
proper policy. The advocates of Protection are not 
satisfied and they hire a professor to write Political 
Economy all over again with Protection in the proper 
position — according to their view. Then comes So- 
cialism and rules out the whole dispute as incon- 
sequential — which it will be when Socialism makes 
the law. Socialism is going to do away with produc- 
tion and exchange for profit, and, if it does it, of course 
there will be no occasion to dispute over the merits 
of free trade and protection. -In the same way com- 
petition, which is so important and beneficial a factor 

22 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

of economic life, according to Adam Smith, will never 
be mentioned — when Socialism makes the law — and 
the Political Economy. 

Socialism proposes to substitute for the titles to 
property which have been recognized as valid by law 
for thousands of years the title created by labor. The 
laborer shall have that which he produces, says Social- 
ism, and he who produces nothing shall have nothing. 
It being agreed that all the other titles to property 
are invalid, let us examine that which is asserted by 
Socialism to be created labor. 

Broadly speaking Socialism recognizes no private 
title to land. The land being social wealth, says So- 
cialism, must be socially, that is to say collectively, 
communistically, owned. So also with the machinery, 
though the private ownership of the simpler tools 
may for a time be permitted as a matter of policy. 
The Wealth, then, which an individual may own under 
a socialistic system of laws and economics will be the 
output of his labor applied to land or to a machine, 
and it will be necessary to ascertain this by some 
process of calculation and apportionment, since labor 
is even now very largely social or collective and ap- 
parently destined to become more so. 

. The deep consideration of this program leads to 
some conclusions with which the Materialistic Social-. 
ists are not suited and they are prone to refuse to ad- 
mit them. The question is at once raised : "Who 
owns the property, that is the land and the accumu- 
lated Wealth, the Capital?" To this the Socialist 
answers "Society," but he does not care to go into the 
question of "Who or what is Society?" Let us con- 
sider it regardless of his wishes. 

23 



The; Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

Every individual human being is the child of two 
parents, of four grand parents, of eight great grand 
parents, of sixteen great great grand parents and so 
on backward, the number of progenitors increasing 
geometrically in the ratio of two with each preceding 
generation. If four generations to a century are as- 
sumed and the multiplication carried backward for 
a thousand years we shall arrive as a matter of Arith- 
metic at the point where every individual now living 
has about 2,000,000,000 ancestors of the same genera- 
tion, that is a number greater than the number of per- 
sons living upon the earth at any one time. Inter- 
marriage and the confinement of tribes and nations 
within territorial limits prevent ancestry from work- 
ing out in accordance with this mathematics, but 
undoubtedly every living human being represents in 
his person a great many millions of human being who 
have lived before him and probably there is com- 
mingled in his veins the blood of what was at some 
time in the world's history its entire human popula- 
tion. 

Consider the future in the same manner. Every 
man who is the father of children may reasonably ex- 
pect that at some time in the future, say 5,000 years 
hence, the entire population of the Earth will con- 
sist of his descendants. They will be at the same time, 
the descendents of all others now living, that is to 
say the descendents of those whose posterity survives 
until that time. Lines will run out, and families, 
tribes and even nations will become extinct, but in 
a broad sense the population of the earth a few thous- 
and years from now will, it is reasonable to think, 
be the posterity of all who are now living. 

24 



The. Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

We are the heirs of the ages, and of numberless bil- 
lions of men and women who were our ancestors. They 
labored for us in a sense as real as that in which they 
labored for themselves. Their hands conquered the 
land, their brains produced the laws and the "econo- 
mics" according to which we hold and administer it. 
Their genius produced the machines. Their ingenuity 
even fabricated Socialism. Truly land and capital do 
not belong to us. We do not even belong to ourselves. 

The billions of individuals and the millions of 
nations yet to be will be their heirs and OURS. And 
these billions, looking forward and backward to in- 
finity, into the past and into the future to the point 
where the imagination fails and can perceive nothing 
of all that is there, constitute Society. Wealth belongs 
to Society. What better is this for the purpose of 
comprehension by the limited human mind than to 
say that Wealth belongs to God? 

Socialists pride themselves upon reasoning scien- 
tifically, that is from cause to effect. Let me invite 
them to think of "society" and its possessions accord- 
ing to a conception of Causation which, so far as I 
am aware, did not occur to Marx or any of their other 
teachers, and which I will grant is probably too much 
for minds limited by the "materialistic interpretation 
of history." The individual man considers himself a 
free agent. Being presented with an alternative he 
has the power to do this or to do that, or to do this 
or not to do it. More strictly speaking he thinks he 
has this power. For all that he does not know and 
that materialistic Socialism thinks it does know, his 
action is determined, but he thinks he has freedom. 
Out of his real or imagined freedom grows a theory 



The Righteous Ownershii or Wealth 

of individual causation plus individual responsibility. 
That is to say there is causation which is subject to his 
control. All men possess this theory and act upon it 
constantly and habitually. Individual Socialists 
possess it and act upon it, though in conventions and 
in their books they manage to lose it and find that all 
they do is historically, mechanically, materially and 
economically DETERMINED. The mass of mankind, 
through their constituted authorities, however, recog- 
nise that collectively as well as individually they can 
measurably control their doings and are responsible 
for them and for their consequences. This is one 
kind of causation, the causation which man controls or 
influences, or which he thinks he controls or in- 
fluences. 

Beyond the causation which he can influence man 
perceives that there is causation which he cannot in- 
fluence. The first is extended into the second by im- 
perceptible degrees. The rivers flow to the sea. By 
a mighty enterprise of labor and engineering man 
might change the course of a river. By enterprise and 
labor judiciously employed in connection with natural 
causes which he cannot control, but which to some ex- 
tent he understands, he CAUSES great forests to 
grow. He learns to understand the relations of the 
seasons and, partly through his understanding of them, 
he grows his crops and thus produces his food. Thus 
he controls the crops, but he cannot control the rota- 
tion of the seasons. In other ways he learns that there 
is Causation which he can study and understand, but 
which is not influenced by his actions and for which he 
cannot think himself to be in any degree responsible. 
That is to say, there is a second kind of causation 

26 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

recognized by man, that which he can not control or 
influence, but which he can study and understand. 

Pursuing the study of Causation for his enjoyment 
and the enlightenment of his understanding, if he 
will but pursue it far enough, man is brought to the 
conclusion that there is a third kind of Causation, that 
which he can neither influence nor understand. His 
microscopes will not isolate the germ of a thought ; no 
knowledge of chemical affinity will enable him to de- 
termine when a human being's choice will be cast for 
sacrifice and when for selfish gratification. His tele- 
scopes cannot fix the boundaries of the universe, or, 
if they could, they cannot show him that there are 
no other universes. Most important of all, he is grad- 
ually brought to understand that his own powers of 
understanding are limited, that broaden the circle of 
his knowledge as he may there will forever remain 
the limitless circumference of the Unknown. He is 
able to see that causes for which he is not responsible 
play upon hrs voluntary acts and influence their re- 
sults. He must believe that causes of which he has 
no knowledge likewise play upon the causes which 
he accustoms himself to think are comprehensible and 
that their results are likewise influenced. The agency 
of freedom in his own sphere of causation, is thus 
naturally supposed in the sphere of causation which 
surpasses his understanding. And thus man arrives, 
and will continue to arrive, Materialistic Socialism 
and all other Materialism to the contrary notwith- 
standing, at the SUPPOSITION of God.' 

Granting then that God is a supposition, the sup- 
position explains the ownership of property as no 
other supposition can possibly explain it. I ask who 

27 



The Righteous Ownership of Wealth 

owns the Wealth and Socialism answers "Society." 
If Society owns the wealth it is responsible for its ad- 
ministration and it is responsible to every individual 
whom that administration affects. I have shown that 
Society is not a more tangible entity, not a thing 
more easy to get hold of and bring to a realization of 
its responsibility than is the Black Unknown lying 
beyond the causation which it is possible for man to 
understand. This Society moreover is also a SUP- 
POSITION. It existed once and is gone and it is 
yet to exist. The few millions of individuals living at 
one time are an infinitesmal fraction of it. We have 
an opportunity to contribute something to it, but that 
which we collect from it can have little relation to our 
individual demands. AND THIS WILL CON- 
TINUE TO BE TRUE UNDER SOCIALISM AS 
UNDER OTHER POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC 
SYSTEMS. 

In deciding then. who is the rightful owner of prop- 
erty we have a choice between two suppositions, neither 
of which is completely comprehensible by the mind 
of man. But the supposition of God possesses the 
advantage that it somehow answers the demands of 
an Intuition, the possession of which intuition points 
to a belief that Man is an immortal spirit. I com- 
mend it to the consideration of Socialists. And I 
commend to the members and leaders of religious 
organizations the task of formulating the THOUGHT 
of God in such a way as that it shall appear reasonable 
to the men who, busily engaged in the reconstruction 
of society upon democratic lines, and unable to think 
of God in terms of primitive dogmatism, have found 
it possible to forget Him and to assert that Science 
has no need of His existence. 

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